Effective Visual Aids and Body Language for Presentations

Posted on Dec 3, 2023 in Physical Education

Visual Aids- Design

  1. Start with a Striking beginning to engage the audience
  2. Show one point at a time: It will help audience concentrate on what you are saying. Do not overload the slides with too much information. Short and simple ideas. Avoid wordiness. Do NEVER write texts, it’s terrible, your audience can read faster than you can read. It’s insulting and boring.
  3. Contrast: Use a colour font that contrasts sharply with the background. The simpler, the better.
  4. Make sure you use and effective and consistent text appearance in all your slides.
  5. Size: Make sure it’s big enough for everybody to read.
  6. Font: Make sure the font is easily readable and that the size can be read by even the people sitting in the last row of the room.
  7. Pictures: Make sure the pictures you use are relevant and related to you topic. Pictures are supposed to be helpful and exemplary, not just decoration in you slide.
  8. Graphs: Always title your graph. Summarize the results of you graph in the slide. The message has to be very clear. If you use a graph you have to analyze the results. The simpler the graph, the better
  9. Transitions, animation and visual effects: If you use transitions, try to keep them simple and use the same one throughout the presentation. The audience should be interested in your message, not how you can dazzle them with motion
  10. Closing: Use and effective and strong closing: remember that your audience is likely to remember your last words.

Body Language

Eye contact:

  • Keep eye contact to keep your audience’s attention. Making eye contact with the individuals of the room is imperative!
  • Don’t be a tennis umpire presenter.

Facial expression

  • Your facial expression should be natural and friendly

Posture

  • Stand straight but relaxed, do not slouch or lean
  • Stand with your feet apart and your shoulders square, facing the audience. A relaxed, straight posture will convey assurance and authority to your audience.
  • Do not stand on your heels
  • Do not cross your legs
  • Do not lower your head
  • Do not cross your hands in front of you: it gives the impression of weakness, lack of experience and vulnerability
  • Do not cross/fold your arms in front of your chest: it transmits rejection
  • Do not stand with your arms behind your back. It shows lack of energy, frustration or wanting to hide something
  • Do not put your hands in your pockets: It can give the impression of an excess of confidence or even apathy.
  • Do not stand with your hands on your hips: this is a defiant, aggressive or even a condescending posture.
  • Avoid the T-Rex posture: If you have your elbows close to your thoracic cavity and your forearms raised up front with no clear purpose, you may adopt strange postures like: praying, rubbing your hands, steepling fingers. By avoiding this posture, you will also avoid uncontrolled involuntary gestures.
  • Always: look at your audience

Gestures

  • Use a Pointer (do not fiddle with it)
  • You can always use your fingers to emphasize sth, for example: “this has 3 advantages” or “we have to face 2 problems”…
  • You can move your hands vertically or horizontally to compare things (benefits, losses…), to illustrate periods of time, stages, dates…Think about how it better suits your purpose.
  • Show your palms
  • Move your hands to indicate different possibilities
  • Adapt your gestures to your content.
  • DO NOT: touch your nose (lying), face (insecurity), hair (insecurity), rub your eyes (disbelief, bite your nails or look at them (insecurity)

Movement

  • Do not sway back and forth like a pendulum
  • Move slowly
  • Have a power position
  • Move close for emphasis
  • Don’t be a “lighthouse presenter”: goes systematically around the room with no reason, just moving right-left, left-right.
  • Remember to move slowly and stop sometimes to look at people. Study your movements in advance so that they make sense.

Oral Skills

Albert Mehrabian’s rule regarding face-to-face communication:

  • words accounts for the 7%
  • tone of voice accounts for the 38%
  • body language accounts for the 55%

The 4 Ps

  • Pitch
  • Pace
  • Pause
  • Projection (volume)

What ‘s Pitch?

Pitch refers to the ups and downs of your voice when you speak. Why is pitch important? A monotone voice bores the audience and a bored audience is less likely to recall your key points or to take action. It’s very important to pay special attention to concepts such as Intonation and word stress.

What ‘s Pace?

Pace refers to the speed at which you speak. A good speaker knows the value of changing the pace as they speak. For example, when you are introducing a topic that is exciting you can speed up the pace of your voice. On the other hand, when you want people to focus their attention you may slow down for emphasis. The overall point is that variation is the key to success here.

What ‘s Pause?

Pause involves stopping momentarily for effect in the middle of your remarks. It is a tool that is used hand in hand with variation of Pace. A pause is best used before or after a significant point as a tool for emphasis. Pause is also a tremendous tool for nervous speakers who tend to speak too fast. By stopping at key points, the speaker allows the audience time to process key points before moving on to new material.

What ‘s Projection?

This aspect of voice is by far the most important as it correlates to your audience’s ability to hear your remarks. Even the most intelligent presenter cannot have their desired impact if the people in the room cannot hear their key points. With projection, everyone can hear your comments without having to strain their voice. Ensure they can hear you and that you are speaking from your diaphragm. It’s very important to pay special attention concepts like enunciation (clarity of articulation) or pronunciation.